FanPost

The Basketball Gods

Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

Steve Kerr invoked the basketball Gods when he took Klay Thompson out after the third quarter of his sixty point game. Draymond Green invoked them when apologizing for being too unselfish in trying for an assist to get a triple double. Tony Parker invoked the basketball Gods when the Spurs lost the 2013 finals. Greg Popovich refused to blame the Gods.

The Basketball Gods oversee the great cathedrals of the NBA where they are worshiped. Their rule seems simple, but is more complex than it seems. They have a single law-- play to win. Although this seems simple enough it isn't. For the players it means prepare to win off the court and play to win on it, that is, win the game. This must continue even when the game is out of reach.

For the coaches it means win the championship. It means, at times, holding players out of a game even though they could play, and so not playing to win those games. They do not cross the basketball Gods by doing so. They are not playing to win that game, but the season, entry into the playoffs.

General Managers often need to build a team and, like Sam Hinkie in Philly, might tank one or more seasons for draft picks. So they are ready to lose the season to win in the future. On all three levels, the participants can continue to play to win.

Any play that is not play to win disturbs the Basketball Gods. For example play for records. Russell Westbrook played for records. Play for records displeases the Basketball Gods. Playing for records is not playing to win and risks injury. That lesson was learned, once again, during the Warriors seventy-three win season. The Basketball Gods are not like judges in a court room, and they do not punish for infractions. Playing for records carries its own punishment in the disintegration of the team cohesiveness and unnecessary wear and tear. If one player is going for records why shouldn't the others. Unselfishness, delicate at best in the survival-of-the-fittest atmosphere of the NBA, disappears. For if they agree to sacrifice just for one player's benefit, they had better get paid for it. When one player plays for records, everyone looks out for number one and the team loses. The graceful movement of selfless play disappears. They play worse.

Even playing for team records hurts, for the team must make plays that are not winning plays, disturbances in the flow..

Playing to win does not guarantee that you will win. Basketball his its Jobs. Talent is the Gods' mysterious gift. And playing for records does not mean that you won't win, but it hurts your chances by corrupting team chemistry and making you play worse. Flaunting the Gods is running an unnecessary risk and diminishing your level of play. It is sure to produce, at the least, an uneasiness.

As Steve Kerr clearly knew when he took Thompson out, this is true even if you are playing to win almost all the time. Allowing oneself to waver, and play not to win, even in a laugher, sends a disturbance through the spiderweb of passes that are the sign of team play.

At the highest level playing to win becomes more subtle. What is choking? A failure to play well when winning is on the line. Hubris? Hubris is overconfidence, a self-deception that allows a player to relax his efforts and not give his all. This is not-playing-to-win revealed in character.

Basketball is not a monotheism, and a basketball game, like the Trojan War, is a contention among the Gods too. There are three basketball Gods. Skill, Brawn, and the Dark God who, still in the service of winning, finds loopholes in the rules that threaten to destroy the game itself. When the Dark God is ascendant the game is chaos. Coaches who employ the hack-a-whoever, making the game grind to a halt worship the Dark God, as does any player when he plays so as to cause another player to foul him. Fouls are fouls because they are actions that don't belong in the game. To intentionally cause others to foul is to cause actions that don't belong to basketball. Because the one punished is the one who suffered rather than the one who caused the action, such play violates the nature of things. Flopping is also an embrace of the Dark god and seems to have few fans. James Hardin has embraced the Dark God. Worship of the Dark God disturbs the natural order. And yet the Dark God must have his due.

The fans, sitting in darkness, sacrifice to the Basketball Gods when they buy their tickets. They have come to see two teams play to win at the highest level. They are observers. Were the game to deteriorate into marching back and forth between the foul lines they would not come, and the NBA would cease to exist, and the basketball Gods would languish. If hack-a whoever and a march to the foul lines makes sense at the end of a game it makes sense at the beginning. No coach would go this far down the path with the Dark God. Embrace of the Dark God is a dance on a cliff, for the Dark God would destroy the game itself.

Skill, Brawn, and Darkness all find fans. Curry versus Shaq versus Hardin.. But neither brawn nor skill nor tricks alone is enough. Both big on little and little on big are mismatches. Tricks alone without skill or brawn won't get you far. The same for the other two. A team must be a blend of all three and integrate them into a smoothly running whole. Right now it seems that small ball with fast transitions by highly skilled players dominates bruiser ball or hero ball. All brawn players like Dwight Howard or Roy Hibbert are finding no place in the NBA. But no team can win without a rim protector, a denier in the paint who cannot be bullied. And, it seems, you need to play a little dirty, too, just to show you mean business. Steph Curry is not above pulling a Hardin now and then.

Grabbing, shoving, flopping, attracting fouls, inciting opponent meltdowns, and other dirty tricks do not violate the decrees of the basketball Gods-- play to win. It is, indeed considered part of the game. Teams can win in this manner. So it is part of the game to violate the rules if you can get away with it. This seems to be what makes basketball a game played by men. Not the basketball Gods, but the league enforces the rules. The basketball Gods require breaking the rules enforced by the league to the extent that one can get away with it. In serious contests men play to win and do whatever they can get away with. Playing-to-win is a fight to the death restrained only by the officials. The Dark God reminds us that when you are serious about what you are doing you will bend and perhaps break the rules. For by breaking the rules you can win.

Basketball is human endeavor pared down to simplicity. Put this ball there. That's basketball. Add someone trying to stop you and you have a picture of human life in its purity. Success and failure in the raw, just like ancient times except without death at the end. Were there no rules it would become a brawl under the basket. Mayhem and murder. But only thugs would want to watch for long, and they usually have little disposable income. And therefore it would lose its point. For to be the essence of doing something the thing you are doing has to matter. Life is not a collection of pointless doings, but doings that matter. The money and fame and the legacy make it matter.

The NBA builds the basketball cathedrals, makes the rules and enforces them, and supplies the money. The players' legacy somehow grows from the media chatter. Stories from the careers of the great players get woven into this tapestry of basketball history and they become immortal. Because of its history and because they have the most money, the NBA with its owners and commissioner, are the caretakers, but not the priests of basketball. The NBA makes basketball serious. Their rules are designed to give each of the Gods their due. Too much finesse and the league is too soft, too much brawn and it is slow and ugly. The rules balance defense and offense, athleticism and brawn. They shape the game into a tension between a good show and an ideal of purity. The tension between creating a show and preserving purity legitimizes Hardin's play. The Gods are indifferent to the rules, just so long as they honor all three of them. Whatever the rules, play to win.

It is the fans, of course, wih their worship of basketball when they buy tickets and merchandise or watch the games on cable TV who supply the revenue that makes all this possible and important. The fans, like the shades in Hades, enter basketball only by making noise from their shadowy anonymous perches above the floor. The basketball court is basketball's real world. It is where you reveal who you are. The fans can appear on ithe floor only as clowns. It is on this floor, in the end, that winning or losing takes place, so it is sacred ground. It is on the floor that players are elevated to basketball's heaven, the hall of fame, and become part of its history. It is only on the floor, worshiping the Basketball Gods, that life is really lived.

@page { margin: 0.79in } p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 120% }

This FanPost is a submission from a member of the mighty Golden State of Mind community. While we're all here to throw up that W, these words do not necessarily reflect the views of the GSoM Crew. Still, chances are the preceding post is Unstoppable Baby!